“Mr. Mooney had drove over to see Simeon Thacher about somethin’ or other,” explained Tobias, “and they was standin’ right in the middle of the walk in front of the post office, talkin’. Don’t ask me what they was talkin’ about, some kind of politics of course-- Sim is takin’ a whole lot of interest in politics these days. Well, anyhow, there they was when along the sidewalk comes Cap’n Foster, walkin’ just as pompous and important as if old Cook hadn’t kicked him all the way home from Washin’ton. Mooney see him comin’ and he whispers somethin’ to Sim and both of ’em laughed. When the cap’n got abreast of ’em Mooney turned around. ‘Oh, how are you, Townsend?’ he says, kind of as if he wasn’t much interested.” Mrs. Eldridge, to whom her husband was telling the story, interrupted. “Is _that_ what he called him--Townsend?” she exclaimed. “Humph! The last time I heard ’em speakin’ together was up at the town hall ’most a year ago. ’Twas, ‘How do you do, Cap’n Townsend, sir?’ then. And if his tongue wasn’t buttered from bow to stern then I never heard one that was.” “Wan’t no butter on it this time,” declared Tobias. “He just says ‘How are you?’ same as I’d say it to--to Millard Clark. Cap’n Foster never turned a hair. Just looked him over as if, for a minute, he wasn’t sure who ’twas. Then he nodded his head. ‘Oh, hello, Mooney,’ says he. ‘Sorry, but I can’t talk with you now. I’m in a hurry to get my mail.’ Well, Mooney stepped out of the way, but I declare if he didn’t look foolish. Yes, and mad. He ain’t used to havin’ folks shove him to one side much nowadays, I guess.” The important Mr. Mooney was not the only person “shoved to one side” by Foster Townsend. Mrs. Wheeler, whose summer home was opened late in May, called at the mansion soon after her arrival. “The man was almost rude to me,” she confided to Mrs. Colton. “I did practically all the talking while he sat there scarcely saying yes or no. And when I just mentioned to him--I hadn’t seen him since it happened, you know--what a shock it was to all of us, the news of his niece’s elopement with _that_ man of all people, he actually snubbed me. Changed the subject entirely. I shall _never_ go near him again.” When Esther replied to her aunt’s letter she said that she had written to her uncle and should keep on doing so. “No matter whether he answers my letters or not,” she wrote, “I shall write him just the same. Bob had a note from Mr. Cook’s lawyer. It’s the first word he has had from his grandfather and even now Mr. Cook did not write the letter himself. But he must have told the lawyer to do it. I suppose he is so brimful of triumph that he couldn’t help gloating. Of course he knew Bob would tell me and it was his way of gloating over me, second-hand. Bob is far from gloating. He feels as sorry for poor Uncle Foster as I do. Oh, dear! that awful lawsuit was at the bottom of all our troubles, wasn’t it? The lawyer writes that Mr. Cook is far from well.”